Suspected Child Molester Says He Picked His Victim at Random

An accused child molester testified Friday that he randomly chose a Pacoima home where he posed as a Department of Children’s Services investigator.

Richard Burriss, 51, a computer analyst from Palmdale, is on trial in Los Angeles Superior Court on 11 counts of molesting young girls in the Pacoima area.

He said he took a wrong turn off the freeway, found the home by accident and then returned several days later on March 21, 1994.

“In my travel, at a stop sign, I saw children playing in front of [an apartment],” he testified.

When Burriss returned to the apartment, he posed as a child abuse investigator, flashing a fake badge and homemade identification to the parents of a 7-year-old girl and telling them he wanted to speak to her alone.

The child, now 9, testified last week that Burriss took her to a bedroom, told her to take off her pants and underwear and lie on the bed. Then he fondled her, she said.

The girl’s mother said she called police two hours after Burriss left. The family did not identify Burriss from police photographs that day, but later recognized him from television reports when he was arrested in connection with a similar incident in Pacoima.

Deputy Public Defender Michael Ooley argued that his client isn’t a child molester, but a man who holds an “irrational” grudge against the Department of Children’s Services after it investigated him for child abuse in 1986.

Burriss fought the charges, but eventually pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery and was sentenced to three years probation.

Ooley said the case destroyed his client’s aspirations to become a local politician and that he “considered himself a victim of child abuse laws.”

Burriss is being held on $1 million bail.